Andy Murray's Wimbledon semi-final victory against Poland's Jerzy Janowicz was the most watched TV moment of the year, peaking at 13.2 million viewers, with the BBC hoping the audience will grow for Sunday's final.

After the roof slid over on Centre Court, causing programmes to be shifted from BBC1 to BBC2, the annual Murray saga continued to grip the nation. BBC executives are hopeful the final against Novak Djokovic will top the 16.9 million who tuned in and saw Murray lose to Roger Federer in last year's final.

The corporation has enjoyed a degree of luck in the scheduling of Murray's matches this year. First his five-set quarter-final comeback against Fernando Verdasco ran into prime time, with the audience peaking at 10.4 million. Then Juan Martín del Potro's five-set epic with Djokovic caused Murray's semi-final to start later than expected and pushed it deep into the evening, boosting the audience.

As the BBC has streamlined its sports rights portfolio in recent years, Wimbledon has become disproportionately important. The tournament was the first sporting event covered by BBC television in 1927 and has been screened by the corporation ever since. Although the BBC holds the rights until 2017, after agreeing a three-year extension to its existing contract in 2011, the All England Lawn Tennis Club's chief executive, Richard Lewis, told the Observer that it would still like the existing listed events legislation to be reviewed.

The championships are one of the "crown jewels" events protected for free-to-air television and, while Lewis said he was very happy with the partnership, he would prefer to be in charge of their own destiny. He said: "We have a philosophical view that rights holders should be free to choose. Which is not to say we're anything other than very happy with the BBC and the job they do for us. But as a rights holder we believe we know what's best for our business and what's best for Wimbledon. We're not on a campaign but you'd always prefer to be in charge of your own destiny."